More from Lean Dean

He was put on the NFL beat, first and foremost, to chronicle the NFL's return to LA. It appeared at that time the NFL might actually be serious.

The NFL wasn't serious about anything, except watching in case the Coliseum folks and the Anaheim folks somehow came up with public money. Billy had some excellent stories during that time.

Ultimately, the NFL did nothing, and there was no story.

 

Dude, relax man. I'm not trying to pick a fight with you. I don't know who you are either but I'm sure you've done good things in this business as probably most of us on here have. I've done plenty myself that I'm proud of but that's hardly my point here. So you are great and better than me .. fine, so be it.

I know this, I've been in this business 20 years now, and one thing I learned real quick was that the only thing that does matter with 99 percent of the publishers out there is dollars and deadlines. Call my remark snide, sarcastic, whatever you want, but it's still the truth.

The bottom line is our idealistic way of thinking doesn't matter in the business world. The truth doesn't matter. Objectivity doesn't matter. The First Amendment doesn't matter. Money is what matters.

I don't like it, never have, but I learned that pretty quick. Bang your head against the system as hard as you want, in the end, what we do from our heart and as our passion is merely a way for the higher-ups to profit. Clearly, they aren't profiting from us like they were so we're the ones being sent packing.

That's the reality of it all --- snide or not. I've fought many a battle, won some, lost some. Swimming uphill gets old after a while. My advice to you or anyone is to do the best you can, but don't drive yourself insane over what you cannot control. Life's too short.

 

Sorry to snap. Everything you wrote is right on.
I never said I was better than you, I just said that I have done virtually everything in this biz. You hit a nerve about "welcome to the real world" like I was some wide-eyed, naive newbie who just fell off a turnip truck.
And I'm not giving up trying make the paper the best it can be regardless of whether management cares.

 

Heard through the Birdscribe Pipeline (a Class A Lancaster JetHawks version of the vaunted Boston Red Sox Moddy Pipeline) that the Long Beach Press-Telegram is whacking eight people from its sports department.

That would be eight people out of a staff of 20. For those of you mathematically inclined, that's 40% of an already short-staffed department disappearing.

Hard to fit that into my mental Samsonite. Then again, we know about Singleton's reverse Midas touch.

 

I heard 21 people from the PT will be interviewing for 12 spots at the Breeze. That's pretty close to what you wrote.

 

I thought there would be interest here in this story on the Daily News, http://www.sfvbj.com/article.asp?aID=18625455.46493202.1594281.531685.2180365.974&aID2=122628, including news of its move to 53,000-square feet of commercial office space on Burbank Boulevard in Woodland Hills, that is expected to occur in September.

 

Bright side: Just think if they were whacking 40% of a properly staffed sports department, that would really pile up bodies.

 

When the profit margins were 20 percent and more, the suits put up with us. We didn't get between them and the country club memberships or the Bentleys. Now that those margins are down, down, down, they're going after the people who -- in their eyes, anyway -- simply spend the company's money and don't really bring in any revenues, as the bean counters measure those things.

It always has been their sand box, and they just let us play in it. Now, not so much.

 

That stupid point about Dean Singleton supposedly saving 10 positions originally slated to be eliminated is getting entirely too much mileage. Trying to paint him as any sort of savior is beyond laughable.

 

No knock on Torrance, but how did it pass Long Beach in the pecking order?

 

I'm not sure Frank. But it's kind of been a slow bleed over there for a while. At this point, for the most part, the Breeze has stronger writers: Teaford, Collin, etc. But that's mainly because so many people have left the PT and those that are left are working so many desk shifts, they hardly get out in the field.